Comparing population estimates

Faithful readers will recall that I used the U.S. Census Bureau’s International Estimates of population for my analysis of the developing world’s energy use and switched to the UN’s medium variant for my estimate of the OECD’s energy consumption.

Here I’ve put them side by side in a spreadsheet, along with the UN’s low and high variants. Those who want to take a look will see that the UN’s medium variant and the Census Bureau’s projections are pretty similar, so I don’t feel the burning need to homogenize datasets in the very near future (but I will do so eventually and will let you know when it’s done). For those of you keeping track, in 2050 the UN Medium Variant projection for the world is 9.31 billion while the US Census Bureau’s estimate is 9.44 billion. For longer term projections, the UN Medium Variant gives for 2075 a number of 9.9 billion and for 2100 a total of 10.24 billion. (Those of you who tend to suspect that the UN projects on the high side should note that the Census Bureau is higher than the UN Medium Variant…)

The Census Bureau’s numbers only go through 2050, so I’ll probably end up using the UN’s figures. However this is laborious and I’m busy…